Tuesday October 7th, 2008
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Hurricanes, Global Warming, and Media "Balance"
Posted by Hillary Rosner on August 24, 2006 - 7:29am.
Will global warming lead to stronger, more frequent hurricanes? That’s a question that’s been dividing scientists, with recently published papers reaching different conclusions. Many scientists have concluded that warming oceans are producing more severe storms, and that the relatively mild hurricane season of 2006 is the result, at least in part, of slightly cooler sea surface temperatures this year. Other scientists have argued that there is no indication storms have become more intense in recent years, and that any changes are just the result of natural fluctuations. The Washington Post looked at the science on both sides in a story last weekend.
But as meteorologists and climate researchers continue to study the question and publish their results, some scientists are concerned that the debate—and the publicity it’s getting—is detracting from a more important issue. A group of researchers who disagree over whether global warming is intensifying the storms released a statement last month saying that the real problem is coastal development. The scientists maintained that encouraging coastal development means that more people are going to live in harm’s way, in the path of hurricanes. More people living on the coasts means more destruction from storms, regardless of whether the storms increase in frequency or strength.
Other scientists are worried that the debate over hurricanes and global warming has been blown out of proportion by the media, which tends to pounce on scientific controversy, especially when it involves climate change. A post last week on the web site RealClimate titled “Fact, Fiction, and Friction in the Hurricane Debate” (and which generated 130 comments on the site) linked to a new scientific paper that criticizes the media’s coverage of the controversy. The paper includes “a case study of the impact of politics, the media, and the World Wide Web on the scientific process”—and concludes that there is a “values gap” between scientists and journalists, and that the media is often responsible for “inflaming a scientific debate.”
The criticism is not new, but it’s certainly valid. The problem is that journalists, attempting to be “balanced” in their reporting of scientific issues (in the true sense, not the Fox News sense), seek out a quote from someone on the other side. Until very recently, this was the case with most reporting on climate change: Despite the fact that scientists are nearly unanimous in their determination that the Earth is warming as a result of humans adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, many articles on the subject featured a naysayer, for balance. This makes it seem as though both sides have equal weight, when in fact there are only a handful of skeptics out there.
The authors of the paper write that, with the hurricane issue, “the intense media attention associated with the politicization of this issue has resulted in public confusion.” Still, while scientists continue to study the interplay between hurricanes and global warming, no one seems to doubt the fact that devastation from hurricanes is on the rise.
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The year is not over and be very concerned by what the next couple of months bring -- remember the saying calm before the storm........
One year ago, in September 2005, you learned what is actually causing whatever global warming the earth is experiencing.
Solar Warming explained the specific mechanism involved: the sun's increased magnetic activity deflecting the rain of cosmic rays upon the atmosphere, resulting in fewer clouds reflecting sunlight back into space and thus a warmer earth.
There is no better correlation to the earth's climate than the sun's magnetic activity, denoted by sunspots. When this activity is high the earth warms; when it is low, the earth cools. (See the chart in Solar Warming.)
Another long-known correlation is that between the amount of cosmic radiation and clouds: the more the radiation, the more cloud cover; the less radiation, the less cloud cover.
Also known by scientists is that the sun's magnetic field shields or deflects cosmic rays away from earth. Since the sun's magnetic field and sunspot activity has been high through much of the 20th century, certain scientists hypothesized that the resultant decrease in cosmic radiation would result in less cloud formation and thus a warmer earth.
Among these scientists were Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen, directors of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.
Earlier this month, they released the results of very well-designed and controlled experiments demonstrating the chemical mechanism of cosmic ray action upon cloud formation. Their paper, Experimental Evidence for the role of Ions in Particle Nucleation under Atmospheric Conditions, is highly technical, but they provide a two easily-understandable explanations.
First is a graphic description, The SKY Experiment in Copenhagen. ("Sky" means "cloud" in Danish.) Second is a short essay, Influence of Cosmic Rays Upon the Earth's Climate.
Folks, this a big deal. These are the results of a controlled experiment by serious scientists, not some GIGO (garbage-in/garbage-out) computer climate modeling. They experimentally demonstrate how the cause of global warming or "climate change" is the sun, not us.
Remember, there are two separate arguments made by the global warming crowd: that there is in fact global warming, and that we humans are the cause. Thus their argument is called Anthropogenic (man-made) Warming. And thus they argue for shutting down human activity that generates the dreaded "greenhouse gas" of CO2 (carbon dioxide).
This argument has always been beyond stupid because CO2 accounts for less than 3% of greenhouse gases. 80% of such gases is water vapor, for which man is not responsible. Further, the earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-1800s, yet there was no appreciable increase in atmospheric CO2 until over a century later in the mid-1900s.
With an experimentally-verified alternate explanation to anthropogenic warming, the arguments of the global warming crowd for shutting down the world's economy (America's in particular) have been blown out of the water.
No wonder the enviros are getting pathologically hysterical, now demanding that "global warming deniers" be criminally prosecuted in Nuremberg-type war crime trials. (Google "global warming deniers" + "Nuremberg" and you'll get 18,000 hits.)
The Svensmark-Christensen experiments are also important in that they will generate a constituency for solar warming within the scientific community - namely, high-energy physicists.
The way things have been, all the money has been flowing to anthropogenic warming research. Money for particle accelerators has been in short supply. To study cosmic rays requires such accelerators, because cosmic rays can carry billions of electron volts. Some have been recorded at 1020 electron volts, and there is no current explanation of how those massive energies are generated.
Thus high-energy physicists are going to jump at the opportunity for funding and thus argue against man-made global warming. So much for scientific "consensus."
This will also get the Pentagon involved. Until the program was shut down by Clinton, a satellite-based particle beam generator was being developed as a space weapon. The proven cosmic ray-cloud formation connection allows for the development of lower power beam generators to simulate cosmic rays.
A proton-electron charged particle beam from a solar-powered satellite could create cloud cover in a specific area (such as a region suffering from drought) by painting the atmosphere with simulated cosmic rays. They wouldn't reach the earth or be harmful to people as the depth of atmospheric penetration can be controlled.
Thus any area of the earth could be cooled specifically. But in the meantime, as Solar Warming described, warming as a global
problem can now be solved - not only for free, but at negative cost. The solution to global warming will save money.
As the Svensmark-Christensen experiments showed, the ions created by cosmic rays attract molecules of sulfur dioxide. The resultant sulfate aerosols act as condensation nuclei for water droplets and cloud formation.
This can be simulated by providing sulfate aerosols directly into the lower stratosphere by having the world's airlines use high-sulfur jet fuel (much cheaper than mandated low-sulfur fuel) at cruise altitude.
Thousands of jetliners flying high over the planet every day using high-sulfur fuel (low-sulfur during ascent and descent) will create a cooler earth. It's such a perfect solution that, as Solar Warming observes, it will drive human-hating eco-fascists completely nuts.
You've got to hand it to the Danes. First they enrage Islamic fanatics with their Mohammed cartoons. Now they are going to enrage enviro fanatics with brilliant science. Let's raise a glass or two of Carlsberg to them.
The Christian Science Monitor just published a great article on a grassroots approach to climate change called Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds. It’s an illustrated workbook that guides individuals and small groups through a 22-step program to reduce their CO2 footprint. The author, David Gershon, spent a couple of decades researching how to get people to change their behavior concerning the environment—and the conclusion he reached is: if you work with a small peer support group, you are much more likely to actually do something different. (as in, Weight Watchers/AA meets Global Warming). He created a program called “Eco Team” which got a lot of praise for its effectiveness at shifting consumption behavior. You can read the Monitor article at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1228/p14s01-sten.html
The book also has a good website with a lot of supporting material for community organizing around climate change. www.empowermentinstitute.net/lcd